This section is from the book "The Home Cook Book", by Expert Cooks. Also available from Amazon: The Home Cook Book.
Peel, core, and boil in an earthenware dish, using as little water as possible, seven or eight large tart apples of the kind that cook soft. When the apples are tender, put them through a colander or sieve and add a small cup of granulated sugar. Add also the grated rind of a lemon, if you wish, or half a nutmeg.
Make a custard of four eggs, reserving the whites of two, a quart of milk and a teacup of sugar. Heat the milk and sugar together in a doubleboiler, add a teaspoon of salt, and then the eggs, stir till the custard thickens, and then remove it to cool. When it is cold pour over the apples.
The whites of the two eggs whip to a froth, add a couple of tablespoons of sugar, and spread over the custard.
Beat the yolks of three eggs till thick and lemoncolored. Add gradually half a cup of sugar, a third of a cup of soft breadcrumbs, and a scant half cup of farina. Fold in the whites of three eggs beaten stiff and half a cup of nut meat broken in pieces. Bake in threelayer cake tins in a slow oven for half an hour and put together with this creamy sauce. Cream a fourth of a cup of butter, add gradually half a cup of powdered sugar, two tablespoons of milk, drop by drop, and one tablespoon of brandy, or a teaspoon of vanilla.
First be sure your fruit is ripe and perfect, without spot or blemish. Wipe it carefully. Boil in a porcelain kettle a pound of sugar with half a teacup of water until the syrup is covered with large bubbles. At this juncture add an even tablespoon of clear white vinegar. When the sugar has boiled to the point of snapping in cold water take it from the fire. Quickly dip in the fruit, and then lay on a dish rubbed with a little olive oil. Clusters of grapes may be so glaced, and then rolled in coarse granulated sugar. Quarters of oranges and lemons also are treated the same way. Be sure the skin of the fruit is not broken.
Soak half a box of gelatine in half a pint of cold water for fifteen or twenty minutes. Add a pint of boiling water, one large orange and one banana peeled and sliced, a pint of chopped English walnut meats, half a teaspoon of salt, and sugar to your taste. Pour in a mold and set where it will cool and stiffen. Tip from the mold, and serve with cream and sugar.
This pudding is made with currants, cherries, blackberries, or gooseberries. Soak in a quart of milk on the back of the stove one pint of breadcrumbs. Add a pinch of salt, a cup of sugar, and beat in three eggs. If your taste likes it, add also such flavoring as nutmeg, or the yellow of a small lemon. Have ready fruit you are going to use. In a pudding boiler or mold put a layer of the breadcrumb batter. Then a layer of the fruit. Alternate these layers till you use up the batter. Cover the pudding boiler tight and plunge into hot water, or steam. Allow two hours and a half for the pudding to cook, and serve with hard or liquid sauce.
Separate the whites and yolks of four eggs. Make a boiled custard of the yolks and a pint of milk by bringing the milk to boil in a doubleboiler and stirring in the yolks and sweetening to taste. Set the custard to cool. Have onethird of a box of gelatine soaked a few minutes in a little cold water. Pour over and dissolve it with threefourths of a cup of boiling water. When the custard has cooled add the gelatine and the beaten whites of the eggs. Stir all together, flavor, and put in a mold to chill.
Have stewed or canned gooseberries. Cut slices of bread, and toast a light brown. Dip some of the slices in fresh milk and spread with butter. Then lay them in a pudding dish and cover with the stewed or canned berries which have been sweetened to your taste. Put in another layer of the toast, and again another layer of the fruit. So continue with alternate layers till the dish is full. Cover tight and cook in a moderate oven half an hour. Serve with whatever pudding sauce your taste directs, or with whipped cream.
Top and stalk a quart of green gooseberries and stew them with a little water in an earthen dish till they are tender. Mash them through a sieve or colander and make the jam very sweet with either brown or white sugar. Have ready in a large bowl a quart of cold boiled custard. When the jam is cold mix it thoroughly with the custard and serve cold.
Mix together one cup of sugar and quarter of a cup of butter. Beat two eggs and stir them with the sugar, adding a cup of milk, and afterward gradually three cups of flour into which two teaspoons of baking powder have been sifted. Reserve a tablespoon of flour for dredging the cup of huckleberries, which you stir in last. Have square tins buttered or oiled, and bake the shortcake in these about half an hour. The cake should be little more than an inch thick when done. Cut in squares, split and eat with butter or thick cream.
 
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